The present invention relates to a pre-fragmented explosive shell containing a quantity of small balls.
In order to increase the destructive power of the known shells, it has already been proposed to place around at least a part of the explosive charge of a shell a quantity of balls made from a very hard material, for instance tungsten or tungsten carbide, the hardness of which is comparable to the hardness of diamond.
Usually, such a projectile is called a shrapnel. When the shrapnel explodes, the balls are projected in all directions and, in this way, confer to the projectile a great destructive power. The efficiency of a shrapnel depends not only on its explosive charge, but also on the number of balls that it contains and of their capacity of penetrating into the target. For a same target, the penetration of the balls substantially depends on their impact energy and hardness. The impact energy substantially corresponds to the reduced kinetic energy of the energy dissipated when flying, due to the aerodynamic resistance encountered by the balls.
It will be understood that for obtaining a sufficient penetration into the target, the diameter of the balls will be selected taking into account the density of the constituent material and configuration of the explosive charge, so that their impact energy will be as great as possible. It follows that, for a predetermined degree of penetration, the diameter of the balls will be selected pro rata of the parameters quoted hereinabove and accordingly must correspond to an optimal value.
Therefore, the number of balls in the shrapnel is comparatively limited by the dimensions of the balls and, consequently, the probability of a shot into the target is also limited.